All three party leaders have attacked proposals to increase MPs' pay by up to £8,000 following recommendations from the official body which sets their pay.

But while Nick Clegg and Ed Miliband have said they will personally reject any such increase, David Cameron has not said whether he will do so, as he is under increasing pressure from Conservative backbenchers who wish to accept the money.

It follows a proposal from the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (Ipsa) which has recommended a rise in MPs' pay to around £74,000 a year.

The prospect of a pay hike comes as memories of the expenses scandal are still fresh, and at a time when the rest of the country is suffering austerity measures. Public sector workers' pay has been held down to a 1% increase.

The proposed change comes despite the independent regulator admitting that there is "no evidence" that the current level of pay has affected the quality of candidates standing for parliament.

The recommended package released for consultation on Thursday suggests:

• A salary of £74,000 in 2015, indexed to average earnings in the future. This is a rise of 9.26%.

• A new, reduced pension on a par with those in other parts of the public service.

• Scrapping "resettlement payments" worth tens of thousands of pounds per MP and introducing more modest, modern redundancy packages.

• A tighter regime of business costs and expenses, ending the provision for things such as evening meals.

Miliband said MPs should not receive a pay rise when nurses and teachers were facing either pay freezes or very low increases and people in the private sector were facing similar circumstances.

"I'm very clear – I don't think this package of proposals should go ahead in the current economic circumstances," he said.

Speaking on his weekly LBC radio phone-in, Clegg said: "[People] working hard in the public sector to keep our public services going, have been put under such a prolonged period of public sector pay restraint.

"That is, to put it mildly, about the worst time in which you seek then to advocate that MPs should get a pay increase."

Downing Street said the prime minister would tell the authority, in a formal response to its proposals, that the overall cost of politics should go down and MPs should not receive a pay rise while public sector workers face restraint.

The prime minister's spokesman said: "What is in front of us is this Ipsa proposal. The PM's view is that the cost of politics shouldn't go up but should go down."

When told that the authority's proposals could mean that costs would go up by £500,000 a year, the spokesman said: "We don't agree. The PM doesn't agree that the cost of politics should go up."

According to the report, a survey of the public found that most think MPs should be paid between £30,000 and £50,000. The average figure was £49,000. In contrast, MPs think they should be paid £86,251 on average, the report discovered.

The authority will consult on the proposals until mid-October and make a final decision by December. Some MPs hope that the suggested reforms will be heavily watered down following an expected backlash over the next few days.

The proposals will then face a further review in 2015 as part of the authority's statutory duty to re-examine proposals before the general election.

Privately, some MPs claimed the proposals could be stopped if the authority was abolished. Many MPs continue to hold a grudge against the authority for enforcing a hardline expenses regime since the last election.

The education secretary, Michael Gove, was one of many politicians who dismissed the proposals. He called the authority a "silly organisation" and suggested that their officials could "stick" the proposed rise.

Some MPs have, in the face of widespread criticism in the media, called for a halt in the way party leaders are conducting the debate over MPs' pay.

Margaret Hodge, the Labour chair of the public accounts committee, said she disagreed with the way that politicians were trying to outdo one another by expressing their willingness to cut their pay packages.

"I think our leaders shouldn't enter into a Dutch auction. You then end up with people putting themselves forward: 'I'll do it for £20,000, I'll pay you to do it'. You then end up with the rotten boroughs you had in the 19th century," she said.

Andrew Bridgen, the Conservative MP for North West Leicestershire, told BBC Radio 4's World at One that MPs were entitled to receive more.

"MPs are paid about the same as a junior school headmistress or headmaster, I've got lots and lots of those in my constituency. There's only one MP," he said.

The Ipsa chairman, Sir Ian Kennedy, said the pay rise proposal was fair because MPs' pay had fallen back over the years and they needed to be properly rewarded for the job they did. He said the expenses scandal had been the result of too much pay restraint.